The Steel Kiss

“I just bought ’em.” He crushed the pack and tossed it into the street. “Give it up, they’re not good for you.”

“Fuck that, man.”

After the kid vanished Tony joined him. He was wearing his own brand of undercover garb—black jeans and a T-shirt, a gray leather jacket, Yankees cap swiveled backward. Together they headed toward the mouth of the alley next to the Orc Cave building.

“What goes on in there?”

“No idea. The kid swears Oden’s in there now. Well, he didn’t swear. He thinks he’s in there. And it’s the only lead we’ve got. So here’s hoping.”

“Feels like a meth house.”

Ron hoped it wasn’t. Both meth- and crackheads would get wound up like superheroes. The junk gave them crazy strength and unmeshed their thinking. If Ron and Tony were lucky Oden wasn’t retail; he sold in bulk. Maybe even to Charles Baxter directly, the perp Rhyme had put in Rikers. After all, brokers and Wall Street lawyers had to get smack and C someplace.

Tony said, “If he’s dealing he’s not going to be alone and they’re all gonna have weapons. Did you ask the kid?”

“Yeah, I did. Not helpful.”

Dunno…

“We’ve been here forty minutes. Nobody in or out. I think it’s cool.”

“Oh?” Tony asked. “You don’t maybe think Oden and his three minders, and their AK-Four-Sevens, might’ve got here forty-five minutes ago?”

“Tone.”

“I’m just saying. K. We go.”

Unzipping the jacket to better access his now-holstered Glock, Tony looked over his brother. “Where’s your piece?”

“Ankle.”

“No. In your waistband.”

Pulaski hesitated then tugged up his jean cuff. He lifted the Bodyguard out of the holster and slipped it into the pocket where he kept the rest of the buy money. His brother nodded, a concession that, okay, the tiny.380 would probably fall out of the waistband or slip down to Ron’s crotch.

Tony touched his arm. “Just, one last time. You sure this’s worth it?”

Ron smiled.

And together, they eased up to the front door of Oden’s building. It was unlocked. To be exact, it was no-locked. A gaping hole where a dead bolt had been.

“Which apartment?”

Dunno…

Ron shook his head.

But they didn’t have to look very far. On the second floor, the apartment in the back, 2F, had a handwritten card beneath the buzzer button, in the center of the door, which was red and scuffed.

O’Denne.

Under other circumstances Ron might’ve laughed. An Irish, not a Norse, drug dealer.

Tony stood to the side of the door.

Ron didn’t. When one looks out a peephole and sees nobody in the hall that means the visitors are cops. He put a stony look on his face and hit the bell. He was sweating. But he didn’t wipe the rivulets off. Too late.

Silence for a moment then footsteps from inside.

“Who is it?” came the gruff voice.

“Name is Ron. I was a friend of Baxter’s. Charles Baxter.”

Ron could see shadows moving under the door. Was O’Denne pulling a gun from his pocket and debating just shooting the visitor through the door? It didn’t seem smart to do that in your residence. But Ron realized O’Denne might not be particularly stable and might therefore be unconcerned about wasting an intruder close to home. And as for anyone else nearby, he guessed gunshots were more or less common here and therefore largely ignored.

“What do you want?”

“You know Charles’s dead.”

“What do you want?”

“He told me about you. I want to pick up with you where he left off.”

A click from the other side of the door.

A gun cocking? Or de-cocking?

But the sound turned out to be one of several locks snapping open.

Ron tensed, his hand slipping toward his pistol. Tony had already drawn his Glock.

The door opened and Ron looked inside, scanning the man who stood before him, backlit in light from a cheap lamp with a torn shade.

Ron’s shoulders slumped. All he could think: Oh, man…  What do I do now?

CHAPTER 59

Lincoln Rhyme heard the front door of his town house open and close. Footsteps approached.

“It’s Amelia,” Juliette Archer said. They were in the parlor.

“You can tell from the sound. Good. Yes, your hearing, vision, smell will improve. Some doctors dispute it but I’ve run experiments and I’m convinced it’s true. Taste too, if you don’t kill off your sapictive cells with excessive whisky.”

“The what? Sapictive?”

“Taste receptor cells.”

“Oh. Well, life’s a balance, isn’t it?”

Amelia Sachs walked inside, nodding greetings.

“A confession from Griffith?” he asked.

“More or less.” She sat down and told him a story of two brothers bullied—the younger one to death—and his sibling’s growing instability and desire for revenge. Griffith’s account aligned perfectly with what Alicia Morgan had told them.

“ ‘Shoppers,’ ” Archer mused after hearing the story. “Well, didn’t see that one coming.”

While the mental makeup of a perp was largely irrelevant to Rhyme, he now had to admit to himself that Vernon Griffith was one of the more complex suspects he’d ever been up against.

“Not unsympathetic,” Sachs offered.

Stealing the very words Rhyme had been about to offer.